I was actually thinking of something a bit more dedicated. Basically a surface ship equivalent of a SSBN. One might think arsenal ship but I was thinking of purely ballistic missiles such as Polaris/Trident as opposed to cruise missiles/SAMs etc.

I was actually thinking of something a bit more dedicated. Basically a surface ship equivalent of a SSBN. One might think arsenal ship but I was thinking of purely ballistic missiles such as Polaris/Trident as opposed to cruise missiles/SAMs etc.

For a surface ship I don't think there is any way of not carrying a defensive armament. Even the nuke boats carry some self defense torpedoes and tubes. Ships are nowhere near as hidey" as subs and if nuke boats didn't exist, you can imagine a lot of effort would be expended to ensure that the whereabouts of every BBB (!) was known at all times.

In the event of a war, you'd have to imagine that the BBBs would be the first targets of everything in range, especially enemy subs. And since there wouldn't be any way to really hide the BBB, unlike the way an SSBN can hide, it would probably spend it's days pinging away like mad, escorted by a bunch of DDs and FFs also pinging away like made and probably accompanied by a sea control or ASW carrier with more fixed and rotary wing ASW assets, all pinging away like mad in an attempt to find the one SSK that may be sitting near the bottom and waiting it's turn to sink a strategic asset.

The cost to operate the Naval side of the strategic triad would rapidly explode, making it very unlikely that ICBMs would actually be mounted on surface ships at all. It would be almost impossible to protect them long enough for them to be worth the expense.

The USS Long Beach was designed to carry the Polaris missile amidships (in the vicinity of the port and starboard 5.0"/L38 turrets) but that was never implemented. There was also an Italian Cruiser that was planned to carry the same Polaris armament. So depending on where you put them, the Battleship could certainly accommodate a half dozen at the very least.

According to US BATTLESHIP CONVERSION PROJECTS 1942 - 1965, an Illustrated Technical Reference by Wayne Scarpaci (great book, highly recommended), there were studies in the late 1950's for converting both Iowa-class battleshps and Alaska-class battlecruisers to carry and launch Polaris missiles. All had enhanced AA defenses, those studied variants that did away with the forward main batteries, too, had considerable enhanced AA capability in their place.

there were studies in the late 1950's for converting both {I]Iowa[/I]-class battleshps and Alaska-class battlecruisers to carry and launch Polaris missiles. All had enhanced AA defenses, those studied variants that did away with the forward main batteries, too, had considerable enhanced AA capability in their place.

Given the depth of the turret mechanisms, you could probably fit the Polaris and even Trident launch tubes into the ships without protruding above deck. For Tridents, you could get something like 18-19 launch tubes in each turret hole. That's a humongous 57 tubes per Iowa.

If you cleared the decks of gun houses and added a nice armoured cover to each launch tube. that would clear the way for a LOT of Talos, Terrier or Standard1 Missile launchers. In a refit mode you could easily fit 120+ Mk 41 VLS tubes, switch 6 of the 5" mounts over to the newer Mk 45 single automatic gun system, fit 4 each 20mm CIWS and SeaRam mounts, plus decoy systems and still have room to deploy and service 4-6 MH-60 helos for antisub work.

That's a pretty potent ship, to be sure.

But still a magnet for enemy forces. One that in a peer-to-peer war would receive a nuke right from the outset.

How about the Iowas reactivation in the 80s saw a pair of the remaining 5" twins replaced with Mk-13 GMLS, one on each beam and four or more directors mounted around the superstructure, main radars would have been improved too. The four quad Harpoon launchers could have been deleted from the design and the missiles carried in the Mk-13s.

How about the Iowas reactivation in the 80s saw a pair of the remaining 5" twins replaced with Mk-13 GMLS, one on each beam and four or more directors mounted around the superstructure, main radars would have been improved too. The four quad Harpoon launchers could have been deleted from the design and the missiles carried in the Mk-13s.

Interesting, but to what end? Just curious what you think the role of those ships might be?

Longer commissioned relevance for the BBs? They were reactivated predominantly for surface bombardment tasks in a permissive environment. They really had no other tasking in a peer-to-peer war. Adding air defence capability implies use in a more contested environment. In which case the BBs as reactivated really didn't bring enough capability to be worth protecting.

Now, if the rear turret was removed and several hundred strike length VLS cells for Tomahawks were added, or if a flight deck was added aft and Harriers or F-35s were shipped, now you have a peer war land attack or sea control asset that needs protection. In that case removing the last of the 5" mounts and replacing them with Mk 13 or AAD VLS farms makes good sense.

The reactivation of the BBs was at a time when they could have been fitted with Mk 41 VLS instead of the Mk 13 system but they could have used a couple of VLS farms for AAD and one Mk 13 on each beam to fire Harpoons. Mind, the rate of fire of harpoons (1 per 22sec) from the Mk 13 means that you really can't put together a saturation attack. A better option might have been several quad box launchers aft along with the Tomahawk cells.

The ship could be rebalanced by the loss of the turret and barbette armour with the inclusion of bunkerage for a lot more oil allowing them to be used to refuel accompanying escorts. So maybe a RAS mast on each beam.

The BBs are such huge and capable platforms that you really can fit a load of fun stuff into a WHIF concept.

VLS cells and a flight deck sounds like some of the FACES II concepts that were floated. Those would be formidable ships if so equipped.

For a more extreme, but possibly more useful major refit...

Remove the B and Y turrets. Build an above deck hangar w/ an elevator to below deck maintenance spaces and place an F-35-capable VTOL flight deck on the aft hull. Add fuel and weapon storage in the old accommodations and 16" ammo spaces below that.

Remove all twin 5" mounts and reshape the superstructure to permit 64 standard length VLS cells immediately aft of the rear funnel and in front of the new hangar, plus at least 64 more standard length VLS cells in 4 farms down each beam where the 5" mounts roughly were.

Add 96 strike length VLS cells in the area of the B turret. Store additional ammo for the A turret in the existing old B turret lower barbette and provide a method of transferring ammo when out of combat from the B barbette to the A barbette.

Add three CWIS and three SeaRam mounts on each side.

Replace one twin 5" mount on each side with a single Mk 45 5" mount.

In the space between the funnels, add 4 quad harpoon/NSM box launchers on each side.

Eliminate the old directors, the masts and the high, armoured conning tower and replace with SPY-6 radars, optical sensors, and install the AEGIS combat system.

Add torpedo and air weapon decoy systems and active and passive defense systems.

Clean up the superstructure to reduce signature as much as possible. IR suppress the funnels.

_Keep_ the old mechanical ballistic computer for the remaining 16" turret (to date, nothing electronic is actually better than that chest-freezer sized calculator).

And, since we're being totally irrational about this...

Replace the 4 geared steam turbines with six LM2500+G4 gas turbines linked to generators with motors driving the props and loads of spare electrical power for the new sensors and battle systems and allowing space in the hull for another LM2500+G4 to be added (or, go ahead, add it now, add it now!) to provide an additional 35,320 kW of electrical power for advanced electric weapons to be installed later.

_That_ would be a modern battle wagon.

Aaaaannnnnd, now I wanna to go buy an Iowa kit...

"Port side Harpoons all launched, sir!"

"Right, bring her around smartly and fire another broadside, Mr. Christian!"

Something to consider for a modern surface combatant in the role of a BB might be to take a look at a carrier hull as it is a much larger hull with plenty of room for VLS installations along the outside edge of the hull. Plus there is the advantage of having the squared off stern which could possible be modified with a well deck to launch and recover RHIB and similar small craft. While it might not be practical to use a 1:350th scale carrier hull for direct conversion to a battleship, perhaps a smaller scale hull could be adapted through the wonders of "Scale-O-Rama?" to become a 1:350th scale hull. The best hull shape I can see for such a project would be based on any hull from the USS Forrestal (CV-59) and later. Maybe a 1:400th scale would work for the scale-o-rama effort? There are a few carrier models in that scale.

Logged

"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

The idea was an intermediate refit providing improved self defence capability for minimal increase in cost over reality and no decrease in real world surface attack capability. Standard and Tartar for that matter had a surface attack capability, not with the range and surface skimming of Harpoon, but they could be guided into surface targets. Tartar in the wing positions was an upgrade config seen on the later CA conversions.